Republican Position on Health Care: 'I got mine, screw you."

Earlier this week we published a piece entitled "Whose Side Are You On?"You can read the prior post by clicking on the link in the previous sentence.

In that piece, we opined that if you aren't for health care reform, then you are with those who really don't care if 30 million Americans don't have insurance, or are denied medical insurance because of pre-existing condtions, or have their medical insurance policies rescinded when they make a claim.

This position led to a writer who calls himself/herself "Be Responsible" writing to protest that he/she doesn't fit into either of the categories that we set forth in our above menioned blog entry. Here is his or her's comments:

I am not on either side that you mentioned and either are millions of other citizens. Older people don't want their services cut by half a billion dollars as in the senate package and people like me and teachers want to keep their present health care coverage.

For example, I was sick 3 months ago, called my doctor's office at 8:05 AM, he saw me at 8:30, examined me, wrote a prescription, I paid my co-pay, and took my first pill before 9 am. Sorry, I don't want to lose that !

If anyone thinks that I will get that same care by adding 30 million people and subtracting all the doctors, like mine, who said he would quit, is fooling themselves. Yes, EVERYONE wants the Fraud and rates to come down.

What's wrong with making the insurance companies actually compete?

By opening up all 50 States to all the insurance companies watch the rates drop !!

And stop the ridiculous law suits with Tort reform.

We don't need another big inefficient bureaucracy.

And we can not add to the debt anymore or all our money will be totally worthless.

Be Responsible's comment is all about him or her. It is typical of the attitude that most Republicans have, "I got mine, screw everyone else."

Nowhere does Be Responsbile talk about the needs of those who have no medical insurance, or get denied coverage for pre-existing conditions, or see their medical insurance rescinded just when they need it most. Nowhere does Be Responsible talk about the thousands of people who are forced into bankruptcy because of a lack of medical insurance or the thousands of people who die earlier than they would have to if they had medical insurance.

Be Responsible talks about how tort reform and allowing medical insurance companies to sell insurance across state lines will somehow miraclously lower health insurance costs. Of course, what Be Responsible doesn't talk about is how the Republicans had both the Congress and the White House for six years. During that time, we didn't see national tort reform, we didn't see legislation passed to allow the selling of medical insurance policies across state lines. What we did see was an unpaid for expansion of Medicare drug benefits with absolutely no payment mechanism.

Here's question for Be Responsible and all the other Republicans who badmouth Obama's plan: What did you do for the six years you ran the national goverment to lower medical costs, or expand coverage, or increase competition in the medical insurance industry. Oh, that's right, not one damn thing.

So here is a news flash to Be Responsible: The lack of health care for every American is am moral issue, not just an economic one. It is a national shame that this country can't do what every other Western country, including Japan and Germany, our former enemies, have managed to do and that is cover every citizen with adequate health care.

All of the misery the present system is causing to millions of Americans apparently doesn't matter to Be Responsible as long as he/she has his/her medical insurance. Personally, we think that most Americans are bigger than that, but we shall see.